Outpost

by W. Michael Gear

  “Yeah, I guess. I mean damn, I never seen that much before.”

  “Me neither,” O’Leary agreed.

  “You in . . . or out?” Dan annunciated the words slowly, almost like a verbal lash.

  “I got the cards,” Thumbs protested. “That’s my stash! All I got.”

  “What about the deed?” Dan asked, slumping back in his chair. “You’ve got the cards, right? You win this hand, you go back to Transluna close to forty thousand richer. And that’s Donovan figuring. Translate that into the home economy, you’re looking at a couple hundred thousand yuan—no telling what the exchange rate to SDRs will be—just in the gems alone by the time they hit the streets.”

  Exman studied his cards again, blinked, and took a breath before wiping at his perspiring face. “I don’t know . . .”

  “Fine.” Dan reached out and cupped his hand around the pile.

  “Wait!” Exman swallowed. “Fuck. What am I doing? I got the cards!” He leaned back, unsnapped his belt pouch, and fished around. He produced a duralon sheet, carefully lettered, and tossed it onto the table.

  Dan took only long enough to flip the sheet open, read the script, and say, “Call.”

  With a silly grin, Thumbs spread out his cards one by one, as if to prolong and build the climax. “Full house. Jacks over fours.” Giggling to himself, he grabbed his glass of whiskey and sucked down a swallow. “Been nice playing with you, Cowboy.”

  “It pains me,” Dan told him evenly, reaching out with his left hand and grabbing Exman’s wrist as he reached for the pot. Tightening his grip he carefully laid out his cards. “Spade flush, Queen high.”

  For a long moment, Exman stared as if trying to comprehend. “That can’t be.”

  “Read ’em and see,” Dan told him. “But I’m not here to break a poor bastard like you.” And so saying, he shoved part of the pile back. “That’s about thirty thousand, which will set you up just fine when you get home. But do find the right guys when you go to fence it. Those Corporate pieces of shit will figure a way of taking it if you don’t. Bunch of fucking thieves if you ask me.”

  As if absently, Dan scooped what remained of the pot into a sack he unfolded from inside his shirt.

  Thumbs was still staring through a whiskey-laced gaze. “Thirty thousand?” he whispered, wavering gaze on the remaining pile of yuans and the few gems and nuggets.

  “Look here,” Dan told him as he stood and walked around the table. “How about I buy you a girl? The rumor is that you have a real attraction to that Angelina. It’ll be a long two years to get home to that wife of yours. That’s an eternity to lay in that cramped bunk short-stroking that half-hung cock of yours. What say I set you up for the whole night. You can knock off a piece again in the morning.”

  “That’s not even a quarter!” Thumbs protested, his voice slurring.

  “Guys, how about we call the game for tonight? I’ll take Thumbs, here, and get him tucked in with Angelina. Maybe get his flute played if he can’t get it up for more strenuous action.”

  With that, Dan pulled Thumbs to his feet with one hand, using the other to pack the man’s belt pouch with what remained on the table.

  “Fucking thieves,” Thumbs kept repeating under his breath.

  Steering the staggering Thumbs through the crowd, luck was again with Dan. Betty was arguing with a young man at her bar.

  Dan opened the door and shoved Thumbs into the hallway.

  “No. You took my fucking money,” the man slurred. “Tha’ss cheating me. Som’ bitch.”

  Thumbs careened off the wall as Dan urged him forward. As he passed the famous Angelina’s door, he could hear a female voice crying, “Yes! Yes! Oh, God!”

  “Must have got religion,” he whispered into Thumb’s ear.

  And then they were out the back, into the night. The sound of music and laughter came from over in the direction of the tavern.

  “You . . . piece of . . .” Thumbs bent forward. His body convulsed. Vomit shot out in a hollow spray.

  “Oh, yeah,” Dan said, voice low next to Exman’s ear. “Your new best friend.”

  Then he got a grip on the man’s collar and headed him out toward the fence.

  To himself, he said, “Allison, my sweet, looks like we’re finally in business.”

  29

  Kalico stepped off the ramp and onto the shuttle bay deck, oddly dismayed that she was back aboard Turalon. Something about the ship felt stifling; the air—though processed and several times purified since she’d shuttled down—had a heavy and stale quality. The ceramic corridor beneath her feet was polished now, almost every inch of the ship having been cleaned and scoured.

  What Abibi’s crew had accomplished was little short of a miracle. Turalon almost looked new. As Mekong had no doubt looked before she spaced from Donovan.

  With Astrogation Officer Nandi in the lead, Kalico followed the familiar ship’s corridors to the officer’s deck and passed a machine that whirred as it polished the walls. Here she could smell a chemical freshness that, while not unpleasant, left a tang in her nose.

  Two years of this. If we make it at all.

  Turalon sent a shiver through her.

  Am I walking through my tomb?

  It was as if the walls knew some secret she didn’t. As if the hull was slightly out of sync with time.

  “Idiocy,” she murmured under her breath and nodded to Nandi as the astrogator stopped at the captain’s hatch and saluted.

  “Thank you, Nandi.”

  “Ma’am.”

  Stepping inside, the hatch swung shut behind her and she found herself in the captain’s lounge with its curving holographic wall, the table, and heads-up displays.

  Captain Abibi sat in her traditional spot at the head of her table, First Officer Chan at her right. Both looked oddly worried as they stood and saluted.

  To Kalico’s eyes, their uniforms looked cleaner, starched, and pressed. The room didn’t have quite the dingy appearance—though it felt even more restrictive after her time down-planet.

  “Captain, good to see you. You, too, First Officer. I assume there’s a reason you wanted me personally. Is there some problem with the manifest? Our program to free up the space for returnees has had an unusual rate of success.”

  “No, Supervisor,” Abibi told her, tension in her eyes. “We’re all relived that we’re only looking at two hundred and sixty-six returnees. It’s like a bloody damn miracle.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought it possible,” Chan agreed, running a finger around his collar as if it was too tight. “Having been down in that dump, the notion that you could get any of them to stay except at gunpoint is more than unbelievable.”

  Kalico slapped a hand to the table as she sat. “Apparently, my friends, this what the lure of gold, jewels, and blind greed can lead people to commit themselves to. Even the newcomers.”

  She smiled thinly. “Couple the chance for wealth with the worry generated by the missing ships and it’s a whole new calculus. I’ve been appraised of odds makers down there. Based on their probability figuring, we’re getting less than one in five odds that we’ll make it home.”

  At the mention, both Abibi and Chan seemed to blanch. They shot each other worried looks.

  “Could I have a cup of coffee?” Kalico asked, more to alleviate their sudden discomfort than her own.

  Chan stepped to the dispenser where he filled a zero-g cup for her. She thanked him and waited as he reseated himself.

  “All right, what’s the problem? From your expressions, it’s something dire. So, let me ask: You do think we can make it home, right?”

  In that moment she felt half-starved for air, heart juddering in her breast. Come on. Tell me you’ve solved it!

  Abibi spread her hands wide. “We don’t know, Supervisor. Our people can’t find anything wrong with the ship’s
systems, the generator, hull integrity, you name it. Systems are green. Turalon is as fit as when she finished her first shakedown.”

  “And even if the system were not sealed, we’re not about to go mucking with the computers or the programming. They’re way beyond our abilities.” Chan added, as if grateful to change the subject. “We think we have one of the best crews to ever space, but those kinds of equations and code are so specialized that they’re tamperproof for a reason.”

  “Sealed?” Kalico glanced back and forth between them.

  Abibi lifted an eyebrow. “You understand about qubit N-dimensional computing, don’t you? Ultimately our navigation on the other side—once symmetry is inverted—is essentially a fractally derived probability statistic. A mathematical function generated during the time that we’re ‘outside’ of our universe. Essentially we ‘navigate’ by probability. When that probability occurs, the ship ceases to generate the inversion field and symmetry resumes.”

  Chan added, “If everything has worked correctly, we’re in a different part of space. The return ‘trip,’ if you’d call it that, is accomplished by the ship’s generators again inverting space, and the mathematics are essentially run backward.”

  “Theoretically,” Abibi amended. “As best we can understand what the computers are doing.”

  Kalico rubbed her jaw. “Okay, so maybe having somebody trying to tinker with the system might be a bad idea. I get that. But if this is all just running the math backward, if you don’t end up in the right place, you should be able to backtrack, right?”

  “Theoretically,” Abibi told her dryly. “At least, that’s how it’s worked on the ships that have made it home.” Her smile was humorless. “We don’t have any idea about what went wrong on the ships that have disappeared. Something about a lack of data.”

  “But we should be in a pretty good position; just invert symmetry, run the math backward, and we’re home?”

  “We should be.” Abibi’s voice was soft.

  “Then, how soon can we space?”

  “Space?” Abibi said through an exhale, “At your order, ma’am. Turalon is ready to go as soon as the transportees are aboard.” She paused, jaws knotting, and then added, “Assuming you want to give that order given what we’ve discovered.”

  Kalico’s heart began to skip at the gravity in the woman’s voice. “And what might that be?”

  Abibi swallowed hard as Kalico took a swig of the coffee. Miracle of miracles, it even tasted good for once.

  “We’ve had a ping on the long-range scanners,” Abibi told her. “It’s Freelander. She’s in-system, headed for a Donovan orbit.”

  Kalico’s stomach did a flip. “Then why the dour looks? That’s good news, isn’t it? Another ship heard from. She’s not lost!”

  “Good news?” Abibi shot another of those half-panicked looks at Chan. “We don’t know what it means yet, ma’am. But she’s coming in on automatic, and though we’ve been hailing her, all we get is the ID and locator beacon.”

  “So?”

  “So no one is answering our hail, ma’am.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do we. She spaced from Solar System seven months before we did. If she ran the same math we did, she should have arrived at Donovan roughly the same amount of time in advance of us as she left Solar System, give or take a little relativity before and after inverting symmetry.”

  “Theoretically,” Chan amended.

  “So, could she have stopped somewhere along the way?”

  “It doesn’t work that way. The programs and code are sealed, remember? And if for some reason the field generation failed, and the ship regained symmetry, she’s default programmed to run the math backward and take her home. It’s a fail-safe to keep her from getting lost. To ensure the recovery of the ship, and to allow the engineers to figure out what went wrong so that it doesn’t happen again.”

  “I see.”

  “As soon as we determined that they were only responding on automatic, we sent an access code that would trigger a data dump. We’ve been receiving it for the last fifteen minutes or so. Rather than just shout this out, it was my decision to bring you up here and brief you as the data came in.”

  Kalico struggled to understand what it all meant. When ships inverted symmetry no one really knew where they “went.” If it was even a “place.” Some theorized it was into another universe or “bubble” in the foamlike multiverse, others insisted it was “outside” of even that.

  But at least Freelander wasn’t lost. That was a huge relief. So it was possible some of the other missing ships would be showing up. A whisper of hope lightened her soul.

  “Maybe their hyperlink entangled communications system has a glitch in it.”

  “Maybe,” Chan told her. “But we’ve defaulted to radio. Donovan still communicates by old fashioned radio waves. It’s an easy technology to create and maintain. Just like when we arrived in-system, we broadcast on what’s called standard frequency. Unlike laser and microwave burst systems, any three-thumbed idiot can cobble together a radio with a power source, a coil of copper wire, a speaker, and an antenna to broadcast and receive. It’s just a matter of finding the right frequency.”

  “Then I guess we’ll just have to wait until they match orbit.” Kalico took another swig of her coffee. “How long will that be?”

  “Another couple of weeks, Supervisor,” Abibi told her. “They were farther out, clear on the other side of Donovan’s orbit around Capella.”

  “Then we’re definitely on hold until we know what’s caused their delay.”

  And it changed the entire dynamic for Donovan. Another shipload of supplies and equipment were inbound, along with additional transportees with contracts hot in hand. Most of them for jobs that no longer existed.

  And another ship to space additional clay, metals, and gems. The Corporation’s losses were no longer looking so exorbitant. Her position vis-à-vis the Board had just taken a huge leap forward.

  Even as she was considering her rapidly changing fortunes, a chime sounded, and the hatch opened to admit Information Officer Fuloni. The no-nonsense redhead looked even more dour, were that possible. At sight of Kalico, she pulled herself to attention and saluted, then turned worried brown eyes on Abibi.

  “What have we got, Nancy?” Abibi asked.

  “We’re only a fraction into the download, ma’am. It’s huge. But right off the top we received the captain’s log. It’s grim, ma’am. We’ll be able to fill in the blanks as the data comes in, but essentially, and crazy as it sounds, they’re all dead.”

  “Dead?” Abibi came out of her chair. “Of what?”

  Fuloni grimaced and swallowed hard, as if something were stuck in her throat. A look resembling panic lay behind her disbelieving eyes. “The records are clear. Statements from the captain’s and first officer’s log.” She winced. “They murdered the transportees. All of them. And, ma’am, according to the ship’s records . . . that happened more than one hundred and twenty years ago.”

  30

  Talina slung her gear into the aircar, the pack thumping onto the deck plate. Next she racked her rifle beside the control panel and, out of habit, lifted the hatch to ensure the emergency supplies and medical kit were not only present, but that they had been replenished after their last usage, which had been her treatment after the quetzal attack.

  “Yeah,” she said as the beast resettled itself inside her. “That was your doing.”

  She’d have sworn the quetzal that coiled in her chest grinned in appreciation.

  And just what the hell is this, anyway? Some uniquely twisted form of insanity?

  Or maybe she wasn’t crazy to believe she had an alien beast living inside her. Donovan was full of physical parasites like slugs that would burrow into a person’s body. Why not a psychological parasite, too?

  “Hey
, Security Officer!”

  She slammed the hatch closed, then turned to see Cap Taggart striding across the trampled landing field. Behind him the fence gleamed in the sunlight where it separated the town from the harsher reality in which she stood.

  The marine was grinning from under a campaign hat, wearing military fatigues with bulging pockets, an overstuffed field pack over his left shoulder, and a pistol, flashlight, and four magazines on his web gear. A slung rifle hung over his right shoulder.

  “You got a problem?”

  “Got a reprieve,” he told her with a grin, his blue eyes almost gleaming. “Supervisor’s up on the Turalon. Some kind of ship’s business. We’re delayed for a couple of weeks.”

  She studied his outfit. “So, let me guess. You wanted to dress up like a soldier to remind yourself you really do still have balls?”

  “Took a shower this morning so no reminder’s necessary. Everything was hanging right where it belongs.” Then he laughed, as if at himself. “You’re going out. Some sort of emergency call on the radio.”

  “How’d you know that?”

  “Two Spots can be bribed. Turns out he had a weakness for a duralon bowie knife I picked up in Selsus Station. Not a lot of duralon knives on Donovan.”

  She took a deep breath, crossed her arms, and considered. “Look, it’s not that I don’t understand. And it’s a pretty easy gig. Just ride out, collect Madison Briggs, and bring her back to hospital. She’s due to give birth in a week or so, and Raya wants her in. The thing is, I’m not sure I like you enough that I’d want to spend a couple of hours of enforced company.”

  He rocked his jaw, narrowed an eye, and nodded. “Fair enough, Security Officer Perez. But you should know that Step Allenovich had something come up. Some kind of problem with a missing person. He said I could cover for him.”

  “You’re soft meat, Captain. And what was it that bothered me about you? Let’s see if I can remember. Oh, yeah! You were going to kill me, Shig, and Yvette.”